Faith is a Gift - Art 22

That's not always the answer.

I mean, the height and the depth and the breadth and the length of the love of Christ is beyond understanding.

So whenever you get to that point where you think you understand something, take heed lest you fall.

So anyway, with that, let's just open up with a word of prayer.

And then we'll go to the article on saving faith.

And as I said, then Brother Keith will come and do the benefits of faith.

So let's pray.

Our Father and God, again, we come to you in that name, the name of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who so loved us that he gave himself for us.

Lord, we stand amazed in the presence of that truth that we have a Savior, we have a Redeemer, we have one who sits upon the throne, and he is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

And he rules even among principalities and powers and things unseen as well as things that are seen, and that everything is subject to him.

We thank you, Lord, that we are in him by the work that he wrought for us on Calvary's cross.

Be with us tonight, Lord.

May just a few minutes in your word encourage us, teach us, direct us, guide us, and transform us, Lord, that your truth would do a regenerating work in us continually, Lord, that you would sanctify us more and more, that we become less like the world, Lord, rather than more like the world, and that we would truly stand as lights shining on a hill and that all men would see that we are distinct because we have the Spirit of God within us.

So bless us tonight, we pray in Christ's name, amen.

Okay, so if you have your confessions, as I said, we'll read the articles, rather short, and I also will read the appendix.

And for Article 22, which is entitled Saving Faith, there is a adjoining appendix article, and it's Article 7, and so I'll read both of them, and then we'll maybe have some thoughts on both parts of it, what they say in the beginning, and then what is added in the appendix.

So, Article 22, faith is the gift of God wrought in the hearts of the elect by the Spirit of God, by which faith they come to know and believe the truth of scriptures and the excellency of them above all other writings and all things in the world, as they hold forth the glory of God in his attributes, the excellency of Christ in his nature and offices, the workings and operations, and so are enabled, and so, I'm sorry, and of the power and fullness of the Spirit in its workings and operations, and so are enabled to cast their souls upon this truth thus believed.

And then let me read to you the article that was added to, in a sense, to help clarify, open up, expand a little bit.

Article 7 says this, though we confess that no man doth attain unto faith by his own goodwill, yet we judge and know that the Spirit of God does not compel a man to believe against his will, but doth powerfully and sweetly create in a man a new heart and so make him to believe and obey willingly, God thus working in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

And certainly there are a number of scriptures that the Brethren give, and it's so interesting, right, that they not only make statements, because anybody can make a statement, right, but they make statements that are basically founded in the scriptures, and as you read through the Confession many times, you almost see it's almost verbatim what they state, being from directly from the Word of God.

So again, to think about saving faith, and I wanna make sure that we start in the right place, because just think about it, if you don't start in the right place, the tendency is to drift off course, somewhere down the line, wouldn't you agree? I mean, if we're just off a little bit to the left, or a little bit, I think about it when I use my scroll saw, and if you want an accurate cut, ask my son-in-law, because I'll drift, and I try to start at the right place, but I never seem to wind up where I should be.

But just think about it in the area of this thought of saving faith, if we do not have the foundational block in place, then there will be that tendency to drift off course and to fall into error on the left, error on the right, or somewhere else along the way.

And what I wanted to say is this, if we don't start with the reality that faith, saving faith is a, I'll say it this way, that saving faith is a divinely appointed gift.

That if we, I believe we cannot see that, or we will not see that's where it begins, then we're gonna be off course in a very short order.

That when you think about the whole idea of a gift, and we could certainly look at Ephesians two for that, that a gift is something that someone else gives.

It's not something you have, it's not something you own, it's not something, in that sense, that you can go out and get on your own.

It's a gift is something that someone else freely and willingly gives to you.

And if we don't start there with saving faith, I believe we're going, as I said, to find the rocks and run into problems.

It's foundational to everything that we say, and I think that's why as they begin to open up on saving faith, the first few words are just that.

Faith is the gift of God.

And I wanna qualify that a little bit.

What I believe the brethren are talking about here, and what I hope we believe as we speak about faith, is we're not just talking about any old faith, right? We're not just talking about a faith that is, some people say, well, I just have blind faith.

Well, that's not what Christianity is about, is it? Christianity is not blind faith.

Christianity is not even a partial faith.

Christianity, saving faith, is a faith that what? Thank you, you said it.

Saving faith is a faith that saves, right? It's as simple as that.

I mean, and again, if you think about that, and you think about all the ways in which people seek to define faith, what the brothers are speaking about here, what I trust we all believe is, that we are talking about a faith that saves from beginning to eternity, if we could even begin to comprehend it.

That it's not just, again, it's not just something that's factual.

You know, you could have facts about faith, and not have saving faith.

You can have even intellectual understanding of certain facts about the Bible, and about God, and about Christ, and about Christianity, and still not have saving faith.

You can even be able to perceive some of the outworkings of faith, as you see people's lives changed by the working of the Spirit of God, and by faith that they are given, but even that is not saving faith.

The only thing that really is saving faith is when it is experimental within us, because there are many people that have some of those things along the way, and many people will say, well, they'll claim that as their reasoning for the hope that's in them, but really apart from having it experimentally, or if you will, intimately within us, and flowing from us, then it's not really saving faith, and as they lay this out, I think it's important for us to understand, as they say, faith is the gift of God, wrought in the hearts of the elect by the Spirit of God, and I wanted to stop there for a minute, and ask us to think about this, and here's what I did.

I began to think how often people shy away of using that term elect, and how often people shy away from using terms like predestination, and calling, and I wanted to comment on it, and what I did was I went back, and I read through the whole confession, and I wanted to see how often that the brothers in 1644 that penned this confession, how often they used the term elect, and what I found was, just reading through it, and I read through the appendix, that there are seven different specific times where they'll use the word elect, and there are many, many more in which it's implied, and my point is saying that as they talk about saving faith, these brothers were neither hesitant nor bashful to speak about saving faith in the reality of how it is to the elect, and I think that's important for us, and again, let me put it this way.

One of the things that makes my blood boil, yeah, everybody's got things that make their blood boil, right, you don't have to confess right now, you can keep it to yourself, but one of the things that makes my blood boil is when I hear people, and I've heard it over the years, I hear people say something like this, well, you know, I believe in election, and I believe in the doctrines of grace, and I believe in predestination, and I believe in calling, and I believe in the power of God, and what the Bible says about election, but you know what, let's not use the term, because it's offensive, it'll put people off, it makes my blood boil when I hear people in one way say that they believe in election, and they believe in the doctrines of grace, and they believe in the sovereignty of God, and they believe in salvation of the Lord, and they believe that no man can come to the Father except the Son draws him, and then at the next breath they'll say, but you know what, let's hold back, pull back on the reins a little bit, because it will put people off, and I've always thought, and I've always said that when I heard someone say that, I always said, well, I'll tell you what, it'll never put the elect off, it'll never disturb the elect, because they will come to saving faith, so you and I, and you think about it, and you think about these brothers, especially in the day in which they penned this, that they were bold, and prepared, and ready to claim not only what saving faith is, but that it pertains truly to the elect of God, and that you and I should be able to stand in a day when there is so much desire to pass words, and pass this, and separate that, and kind of sneak this in and that in as far as biblical doctrine, that you and I be willing to stand forward and say, you know what, we believe that saving faith is directed at the elect, and that if we need be, we'll define what election means, and I know Brother Keith has done that, and I think that's what you were talking about on your podcast when I walked in, right, about? Well, the podcast today is on why I used the word Calvinist.

Calvinist, okay, same thing, same.

Yeah, yeah, but we use these terms because they are defining.

Somebody says I'm a Christian.

Right.

That can mean 1,000 different things to 1,000 different people.

You tell somebody you're a Calvinist, that's pretty self-defining.

It's very clear.

Somebody might not know what it is.

Right, or they might have a wrong understanding of it.

Yeah, but at least you're being clear.

Yeah, and I told him the little story I might have told you when I ended up at the church, and somebody found out that I was a Calvinist, and they decided to leave the church, and they came up to me, and they said that they were leaving, and I asked them what was the reason, and they said, "'Cause you're one of those Calvinisms," and I said, I'm a what? I know I'm an Italian, but I've never heard of being a Calvinism, and I said, where in the world did you get that term? He said, I found it on the internet, and I talked to another pastor, and he told me to make sure I stay away from you because you're one of those Calvinisms, and I said, the Lord bless you.

He was gone, but just think about it.

So as they say this, and as they lay this out, that faith is the gift of God, wrought in the hearts of the elect by the Spirit of God, by which faith they come to know and believe the truth in the Scriptures, and the excellency of them above all other writings and all things in the world, that you and I would also be forward in our understanding that we need to define saving faith, and we need to define saving faith as being wrought by the Spirit of God, that it is not by the will of man, and we'll speak about that in a minute, certainly that's what was addressed in the appendix, but that you and I would say, whether it's in the Old Testament, and it might be a different outworking and different understanding of certain aspects of it, or whether it's in the Old Testament or the New Testament, whether it pertains to young people or old people or educated or uneducated or those raised in a Christian household, those raised in a pagan household, I don't care where it is, that you and I would understand that saving faith is a gift of God, and it's wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God.

And so, and what's interesting, and what I thought was interesting, if you read this article, they use this in a way in which they demonstrate the Trinity, and I thought that was really spot on, if you just read it, it talks about it's the gift of God, then it says it's the excellency of Christ and his nature and offices, and it's of the power and fullness of the Spirit in his, should be his, workings and operations.

So therefore, when you think about saving faith, not only is saving faith a gift of God, but it's a gift of the triune God, and that the Trinity, as best we can understand of three distinct persons, and yet all of the same essence, that it is a work of the triune God to bring men to saving faith, and when I say men, certainly I don't just mean male, but it is wrought by the Spirit of God, and solely by the Spirit of God, and that in and of itself, friends, should help us as we talk to people about saving faith, if we address it strictly from that sense that it's wrought by the Spirit of God, and then we can address it from the standpoint of that the natural man, as Paul says, he cannot discern the things of God, he does not have the Spirit of Christ within him, and isn't that what Paul says in Romans? If any man, what, have not the Spirit of Christ, he's what? None of his.

So saving faith is a gift, and it's outworking, it's a gift of the triune God, and it is something that takes place at what point? When does saving faith really begin its operation? Maybe I'm not making myself clear.

Let me ask it to this way, and I would hope we would be able to.

Does saving faith bring regeneration, or does regeneration bring saving faith? Saving faith brings regeneration.

R before S.

R before S.

Okay.

I'm gonna, I think I know what he's saying, regeneration, R before S, saving faith.

I would think that the scriptures are very clear in that regeneration takes place first.

Regeneration brings, yeah.

Yeah, and I know, sister, that you.

Well, I'm a lover when I'm wrong.

But you're right about this.

But certainly it is, again, it has to be, it's the gift of God.

What is the gift? The gift is life, right? Because that's what Jesus said.

This is life eternal.

If we can't equate saving faith to life, then we got a problem in understanding what saving faith is or what life is.

And so certainly regeneration is that which brings saving faith.

And that regeneration simply, absolutely, and completely is a work of the spirit of God.

And it is a gift of God, not of works, what? Lest any man should boast, right? So when you think about it, as the brothers lay this out, they lay it out very clearly.

They lay it out very distinctly.

And they also talk about it in the sense of its fullness and of its beauty and of its transforming work.

And so you think about what saving faith is.

Saving faith is a faith that takes a man, and again, generically, but takes a person from being a hater of God to a lover of God.

It's as clear as that.

It takes a dead person and makes them alive.

It takes a hater of God, because that's what a dead person is spiritually.

A dead person is a hater of God.

And it brings them into life and then they become a lover of God.

And so again, when you think about it, this whole idea of how people get confused about certain things, again, if you don't start in the right spot, you're going to be confused.

And I've said it a thousand times, and I'll say it a thousand times more.

If we do not understand the condition of man apart from the grace of God, then we are going to have great problems understanding the grace of God.

Would you agree to that? If we do not understand the condition of man apart from the grace and mercy of God, then the grace and mercy of God becomes very cloudy.

Once we understand our true condition, then saving faith as a gift of God, as wrought by the spirit of God, as a regenerating work becomes very, very clear in our minds and in our hearts and ultimately in our lives.

So when you think about it, put it this way.

Someone who has saving faith has gone from being a hater of God to a lover of God and has become a worshiper of God.

Not a worshiper of God through statues or means or practices or religious activities, but becomes a lover of God because he sees the greatness of God.

And I think that's something that sometimes people will be confused about.

What should I feel like when I have saving faith? Well, if you have saving faith, you'll know.

You'll know that God is great and that his greatness is unsearchable and that his greatness is worthy to be praised.

And so we go from not only haters of God, but from despises of the worship of God to a desire to worship God.

And so again, it speaks to us in terms of the fullness of the spirit and it's working in operations and are able to cast their souls upon this truth, thus believed.

That's a great way to say it.

They cast their souls upon the truth, thus believed.

All right, I wanna just take a minute and ask you to go back to the appendix and I wanted to comment on a couple of things that they talk about appendix.

Let me just read it again.

It's quick enough to read again.

Page 35.

Yes, ma'am.

And so let me just read what was added to it to open it up a little bit more, to give it better definition.

It says, therefore, we confess that no man that attain unto faith by his own good will.

Yet we judge and know that the spirit of God doth not compel a man to believe against his will, but doth powerfully and sweetly create in a man a new heart and so make him to believe and obey willingly.

God thus working in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

And I think this is important and I'm thankful that the brethren put it in the confession and worded it the way they did because that statement is so needful in seeking to help those who struggle with the doctrine of saving faith as a work solely of the spirit of God given to the elect because people will begin to say and misunderstand, well, if what all you're saying is true, then all we are a bunch of robots and a bunch of puppets and God's just pulling the strings and basically that's all there is to it.

But the reality is when we talk about saving faith, we're talking about a faith that transforms us willingly, not against our will.

And you know how many people, and I'm sure you've all had conversations with people at one point or another when you start to bring up the idea of the sovereignty of God and the doctrine of the elect and the doctrine of saving faith being a gift to God that people will begin to kick and churn within about being puppets and robots and here's the reality, right? The reality is saving faith as a gift of God is when God works in us to willingly come.

No man has come to Christ of his own.

We stand on our truth and yet we say that we willingly come to Christ.

What does it say? And even in the appendix it quotes from Ezekiel.

What does God say in that great promise in the new covenant? He says, I will give you what? A new heart and a new will and a new disposition and new desires, not the desires that you had.

Maybe if you are a hater of God, you've got certain desires that bind you.

But what God does in saving faith is he takes us out of that realm, transforms us into the kingdom of his dear son and gives us a new heart and we willingly come.

You wanna say God compels us to come? Fine, I agree with that.

And I'm thankful that God compels us to come.

But God works in us and gives us a new heart and we willingly come as it says in the Psalms, that great statement in Psalm 110, my people shall be willing in the day of my power.

My people shall be willing.

They will desire it, they will desire.

I gotta stop.

There's one of the desires, one of the things that we ought to see in someone who says they have saving faith, they ought to have different desires and they ought to manifest themselves.

If someone says they have saving faith and that their will and their desires and their lives are no different after they say they have saving faith than before they have saving faith, something ain't right.

Because the spirit of God works in us in this working of saving faith and we willingly come, even as the Lord Jesus Christ called the disciples when he first called Peter and Andrew and James and John and they left their nets and they left their father and they left their livelihood and what? He followed them.

They willingly followed.

They weren't yanked and pulled and then you remember the other accounts in the Gospels when Jesus said, follow me and oh man, I gotta go bury my father, can't you wait till he dies and I gotta go test the ox and make sure that, that's not saving faith.

Saving faith willingly comes.

And I was talking about something earlier in the week and I had been thinking about Zacchaeus.

Remember Zacchaeus in the Bible, in the Gospels? The wee little man, we sing that little song, the kids used to sing Zacchaeus was a wee little man.

Should I keep singing? A wee little man was he.

He climbed up in the sycamore tree to save you for the sea and I don't remember the last part of it.

But anyway, my whole point is, think about Zacchaeus.

There was a desire in Zacchaeus to see the Savior and I'm gonna say that was wrought by the spirit of God and nothing was gonna stop him.

So what does he do, the little dude? He climbs up in the sycamore tree.

He's gonna see the Savior.

To me, that's the demonstration, a demonstration of how this saving faith is to be defined, that it's a work of the spirit of God wrought in our hearts that we willingly desire to come and to follow him, to obey him, to love him, to glorify him, to, if you will, imitate him.

That's what we ought to be, as Paul says, imitators of Christ.

And again, I just think it's so good the way this was laid out in the appendix because the appendix really helps us understand what was somewhat briefly stated in the opening article.

Let me close it by this.

Saving faith is a faith that not only saves, but it creates in us a new desire which continually burns, and even as the Psalms say it, it burns brighter and brighter unto that day.

Remember what John said as we closed John 6? He says it's the spirit that quickens.

Anybody remember the last half of that verse? It's the spirit that quickens, John 6, 63, I think.

It's the spirit that quickens the flesh prophets.

Nothing.

Nothing, nothing, right.

So when you think about it, and as Brother Keith will come and now explain, in a little bit more understanding, the benefits of it, now that we've defined it, now we can understand the benefits of it.

And I'll just close it with this, and it's one of my favorite sayings, and it's the last verse in the Psalms.

It's the thing I've had on my business cards, and the thing that's on the bottom of my email is simply that last verse in Psalm 150, and it simply states, let everything that has breath, praise the Lord.

All right.